Mystery Thing in Picture !!!!!

[stuartjones]

Hi there people I was going through some of my pictures that are waiting me to go through them and sort them all out and this one caught my eye. The batch of pics it was in should not have anything like this. I have cropped the picture to show it up a little better.

Please help solve the mystery

[VigdisVZ]

Looks like the crab or the dumbbell to me (no expert). Do you have a larger picture, or an uncropped one?

[stuartjones]

Yes sorry this one may be a bit better

[jammo]

Its got a striking resemblance to the Crab Nebula, but like Carl said, a bigger crop might show more

[VigdisVZ]

No luck there no information.

Can you share more about the setup you used, scope, focal length etc?

[stuartjones]

this is about the closest crop i can get without it getting really bad quality cheers

[stuartjones]

it was at the time my old Konus motor 130 and a digital 8mp camera attached to the eyepiece. four hundred mm focal length, can't remember any more than that i'm afraid.

[VigdisVZ]

The thing is you should have a lot of stars around it if it was the crab. So I'm at a loss atm.

[rory]

id say its a planetary . which one ,i dont know, crystal ball nebula (taurus) ? or skull nebula ?

[Moon monkey]

Whats in the rest of the picture ?? may give us a clue as to what part of the sky it is ....

[steppenwolf]

With no stars in the background, we must assume that this is a very short exposure indeed so it is either a star or planet taken on a lightweight platform or it is a light source a little closer to Earth!

[Keiran]

You could try post the whole image on Astrometry.net or on their Flickr http://www.flickr.co...ups/astrometry/ It would have to be the whole image though, they may bring something back

Its not a reflection or a lens flare is it?

Keiran

[barkis]

It doesn't look like any deep sky nebula to me, and it seems to have a repetitive element to it. It reminds me of a gas flame.

Ron.

[stuartjones]

There does not seem to be anything else in the picture, mind you it is a small picture. I will try and get it on Astrometry site. Thank you all for your input so far, it's just one of those things that has frustrated me for a while now.

I would not rule anything out of what it is apart from a gas ring def not that unless the setup was pointing into some ones kitchen window lol.

[Cloudwatcher]

There are stars to be found in the image when stretched in Photoshop...........not all that clear I'm afraid but my vote would be for M1.

[barkis]

That should be easily Identified by Astrometry.

Nice one CW.

I didn't actually say it WAS a gas flame Stuart, merely that it looked similar .

Anyway, I hope you do get it Identified beyond any doubt.

Looks very promising due to CW's intervention.

We need to rename him Sherlock Holmes .

Ron.

[acey]

Maybe try posting in Imaging?

[Cloudwatcher]

Looks very promising due to CW's intervention.

We need to rename him Sherlock Holmes .

Ron.

Well,thank you Ron (didn't recognise you in your Santa outfit) but I may be wrong........I usually am according to SWMBO.

I will await a definitive answer before I change my avatar.

[mdstuart]

The star field does not match that around M1.

Mark..

[Tim]

Pretty sure It's not M1, which is easily the brightest filamentary nebula of this type.

Where in the sky were you imaging?

How many pictures of that piece of sky did you take?

Is the blob on all of them? Or just on one isolated image?

[barkis]

The star field does not match that around M1.

Mark..

Mark, I also checked out the field around M1 In my Messier Album, to try and verify if it was or not, but the FOV and orientation was very different,

so I renaged on on forming an opinion.

Ron.

[barkis]

Well,thank you Ron (didn't recognise you in your Santa outfit) but I may be wrong........I usually am according to SWMBO.

I will await a definitive answer before I change my avatar.

Your present Avatar is just Fine CW. I'm still undecided, make that clueless, as to whether the Avatar is an early Indiana Jones or not.

I have seen that Chap somewhere, but where continues to elude me.

Anyway, leave as is, because if I don't notice your posts, I recognise the Avatar immediately, and at my age, I need good

clues on a regular basis now. :grin: .

Ron.

[stuartjones]

That's is great what you have managed to do with the picture cloudwatcher well impressed. and that's cool barkis i know cheers for your input.

Tim i would struggle to be 100% sure but have a feeling this one may have been in a southerly direction this is the only shot I as I remember moving around to different locations a lot. And the blob is only on this one image well improved image thanks to the cleaver cloudwatcher, Thanks you all for your continued help and input.

[Tim]

If you want to email me the original exposure I'll have a closer look if you like?

[Cloudwatcher]

The games still afoot (30cm) Watson!

As Ron says the problem is trying to match FOV and orientation when comparing widefield images of this nature. I trawled through Crab images and came across this one,which,when reorientated,does show some similarities in the star patterns,allowing for the difference in level of detail. Additionally,the 'blob' could be the core only of M1 due to short expose time.

Of course this is all hypothetical but it's the thrill of the chase that counts.